Gardaí investigating the disappearance and murder of Josephine ‘Jo Jo’ Dullard in 1995 are on Thursday expected to resume searching as the operation enters its fourth day. Teams of gardaí, operating excavators and other heavy plant machinery, have been searching and digging at a remote area near Grangecon, Co Wicklow, since Monday.
Though a 55-year-old man arrested at the same time as the searches began has since been released without charge, Garda sources insisted a thorough murder investigation would continue. One said detectives were “in it for the long haul”, adding the investigation of a murder 29 years ago was “always going to be painstaking”.
The searching has been ongoing at a scene – comprised of farmland and a wooded area – that Ms Dullard’s family has wanted examined for many years for fear their sister’s remains, or personal items, had been buried there. No human remains had been found by the time the third day of work was completed on Wednesday evening.
The suspect in the case, who is from the Kildare-Wicklow border region, has denied in any involvement in the disappearance or murder of Ms Dullard (21). However, gardaí believe he had contact with her on the night she vanished while hitchhiking in Moone, Co Kildare. The suspect is also believed to have had an injury to his face immediately after November 9th, 1995, the night the victim was last seen alive in Moone.
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Garda sources said the suspect’s arrests was strategic and designed to put pressure on him, especially as he was detained on Monday morning, just two days after the 29th anniversary of Ms Dullard’s disappearance. Gardaí wanted to put to the suspect all the evidence they have gathered in the case and record his replies.
[ Jo Jo Dullard murder: What next after release of suspect without charge?Opens in new window ]
Ms Dullard’s disappearance was treated as a missing people inquiry for 25 years but the case was upgraded to a murder investigation in 2020, when gardaí said they believed she died violently. A Garda cold case review had also been carried out into all aspects of how Ms Dullard’s disappearance had been previously conducted, and unexploited lines of investigation.
Ms Dullard vanished in Moone shortly after 11.30pm on November 9th, 1995, as she was making her way home to Callan, Co Kilkenny.
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